Tender Curiosity
by dancinginthesunlight
Summary: HoH SPOILERS. "'Come on. This is the first time in ages you haven't been all doom-and-gloom.' / Nico gives him the finger." Fluff.


_HoH SPOILERS. You've been warned. You should also probably stay off of any PJO or HOO fanfics until you've read the book._

_In my head, this fic could be canon compliant. I guess technically it could also fit in with __**Past Present Now Then, **__but not with __**These Mortals Be, **__for obvious reasons. Full explanation of that all the way at the end (because long A/Ns at the beginning are annoying). This is Post Giant War, with Jason about 20 and Nico about 18._

**Warnings**: Rated T. Swearing, mentions of alcohol, some PG-13 rated m/m stuff. Oh and fluff.

**Tender Curiosity**

1

_I tell people this: It's hard to write about walking in the park, but it's easy to write about a breakup. ~Kris Allen_

It starts with a phone call.

"Hey," he says, clutching his cell in one hand (he'd refused to go to college without one, monsters be damned) and searching his sock drawer for a matching pair with the other.

"Why are we doing this?"

He should have known something was wrong from the fact that Piper was calling him instead of IM-ing, but the fact doesn't register and he ends up saying (stupidly), "What?"

He finds his other sock and slams the door shut, hopping around on one foot. He slept through his alarm (again) and if he's going to make it to lecture on time he needs to get going in the next five minutes.

Jason can't pinpoint exactly when he became such a mess, but it happened sometime between Piper choosing a college halfway across the country and his spending all of freshman year fighting monsters and then hiding that fact from his roommate.

"Why are we still…" Piper's voice trails off, as though she wants him to complete the sentence so that she doesn't have to.

But instead he says, "I have to get to class," and then turns his phone off for good measure.

He doesn't want to think about this.

There was a time when Piper meant everything to him, when he spent every waking hour thinking of her and trying to count the colors in her eyes and think up things to make her smile.

Now he's too busy with a double major and monsters (because even if you defeat the Titans _and _the Giants, they still come after the Son of Jupiter) to call her as often as he should. He wonders if it's because of the long distance or because of them.

He kind of hopes it's the first one, if only to make it easier on Piper.

She's still his _friend_. He thinks.

Later, when he can't ignore her calls anymore, she does IM him. He looks up, resigned, at her image shimmering in the mist.

"You don't care anymore, do you?" her tone is accusatory.

Jason sighs.

"Piper…"

"Don't '_Piper_' me," she snaps. "You don't just stop calling and act all pissy whenever _I _call because you're busy or tired. If you cared about _us_, you'd take five minutes of your time to call and say hi."

Jason doesn't say anything.

"What's going on, Jason?" her voice is concerned, because she's a good friend, and he doesn't know how he feels about the fact that he's already categorizing her as a _friend_ and not a _girl_friend.

"It's not—I'm—" he doesn't know how to do this.

"You know," Piper says, "If it was anyone else, I'd wonder if there was someone else." Jason opens his mouth to say something, but she doesn't let him. "But you're not the kind of guy who would do that. And that's why I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling right now."

"I just… I don't think—I don't think long distance is working out for us."

There. He said it.

Piper sits there silently. Jason knows her well enough to know that she knew breaking up was a very real possibility, but that she's still stunned.

"It's not you," he says, "It's me."

"Bullshit," Piper whispers. Her voice cracks.

Shit. He doesn't want her to cry, even now.

"We can still be friends," he offers.

Piper smiles weakly. "Stop getting your breakup lines from 80s chick-flicks."

"Piper," he says.

"I'm going to go," she says, and he can tell that she's trying to hold back tears. Then she waves her arm through the Iris Message and the image dissolves.

Gods. He's a horrible person.

"That was rough."

Jason jumps, whirling around to face Nico. "Gods, stop doing that."

Nico shrugs. "Whatever. What happened with Piper?"

Jason doesn't want to talk about it, but he does at the same time. He settles for stating the obvious.

"We broke up."

"Well, yeah," Nico says. "I'm asking you why."

It's Jason's turn to shrug. "We were heading downhill since we started college. Long distance wasn't working for us."

"Sucks."

"Yeah." Jason pauses. "You want to tell me why you're here?"

"The pleasure of my company isn't enough?"

The fact that Nico is joking surprises Jason on its own. The kid – he's a legal adult now, Jason realizes with a start – isn't usually a bright ray of sunshine.

Not that it's Nico's fault. With a childhood like that, it was a miracle he wasn't suffering from PTSD.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" Jason pushes.

"It's boring," Nico protests. He slides onto the crappy couch that came with Jason's crappy apartment. "We're reading _Gatsby_ in English and my teacher's going overboard on the symbolism."

"Nico, it's your senior year. You can't just Shadow Travel here every time school gets boring. Unless you want to chip in on rent."

"It was either come here or fall asleep in class there," Nico said.

"There isn't a single hot guy in your class to stare at and keep you awake?"

Nico glares at him. "No. And stop talking about me. I'm not the one who just broke up with my girlfriend of a million years."

"I'm fine," Jason says, but it comes out snappish. Four years, two months, and eighteen days.

"Right," Nico responds. "I'm going to check in on how things are going at camp. And you should go out and find some college party and get drunk and hook up with some random girl."

He's never been with anyone except Piper, Jason realizes with a start. He's twenty years old and he's only ever kissed one girl.

"There is a guy," Jason says, "Isn't there?"

"No."

"Come on. This is the first time in ages you haven't been all doom-and-gloom."

Nico gives him the finger.

2

_Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought that no one but myself… ~C. S. Lewis, __**The Four Loves**_

A few weeks later Nico is sitting on the floor of Jason's apartment, his feet up on the couch.

"That cannot be comfortable," Jason says when he enters. He isn't exactly surprised to find Nico there, but at least it's early evening, so Nico isn't cutting school.

"Shhh," Nico mutters, "I'm trying to read the SparkNotes on this."

"On what?"

"_The Great Gatsby_. We have a paper due and apparently I'm going to fail English if I don't turn it in."

"You should read the book," Jason says.

"Yeah, okay, Mom," Nico grumbles.

"Someone's in a bad mood."

Nico doesn't say anything.

"Is this about that guy from your English class?"

Nico shrugs. "He's straight." Pause. "The hot ones always are."

"It's funny, but I'm pretty sure Reyna has said the exact same thing before about gay guys."

"You're really not as funny as you think you are," Nico says.

"Write your paper."

3.

_Perhaps they were right putting love into books. Perhaps it could not live anywhere else. ~William Faulkner_

It's Thursday night and Nico's paper is finished. Jason lets his pencil hover over the page, scanning for spelling mistakes (because, let's face it, Nico's dyslexia leads to a lot of them).

"You still haven't actually read this, have you?"

"Why should I? I know what happens anyway. The 'American dream' is dead and all that. Mrs. Shepard went over it enough times in class. What they should really do is give us a book to read for school that isn't about old white guys." Pause. "Old _straight_ white guys."

"You do know that Nick has a one night stand with another man, right?"

"I mean," Nico continues, "at the very least they could— wait, what?"

"I told you to read the book."

"You're making that up."

"Read the book," Jason says. Then he goes back to proofreading.

The next morning, Jason finds Nico asleep on the couch, his paperback copy of the _The Great Gatsby_ resting on his chest. He must have fallen asleep reading – the book is open midway – and Jason doesn't have the heart to wake him up, even if it means he'll be late for school.

Besides, Nico looks kind of hot with his hair all messed up like that.

Wait, what?

It's obviously too early. He needs coffee.

Jason tries to push the thought out of his head, but it stays, the way thoughts of Piper used to.

He's never _liked_ another guy before, not the way he's liked girls, so he's never even considered the remote possibility that he might be anything other than straight. It was always just kind of a de facto assumption. He was Jason Grace. He was blonde. He liked girls.

Maybe not.

4.

_I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald, __**The Great Gatsby**_

Nico has been spending a lot of time in Jason's apartment, and Jason gets it, kind of, since Nico spent the time after Bianca's death basically alone and ever since the Giant War he's been looking for human contact. But ever since the weird moment with Nico's hair, he's been noticing little things.

Like how Nico has filled out in the past few years, no longer the scrawny kid he used to be.

And how his eyes light up when he gets excited about something – which happens more now than it used to – and that the fact that he gets excited makes Jason excited.

And how, despite all his sarcastic comments, Nico really listens to what other people are saying.

It's weird, feeling this way about another guy, but it doesn't feel weird to feel this way about _Nico_.

Jason isn't sure why that makes sense, how both those statements can be true, but they are. Somehow.

"What?" Nico asks, when he catches Jason staring at him. "Do I have something on my face?"

Jason shakes his head.

5.

_Courage is grace under pressure. ~Ernest Hemingway_

This time when Nico Shadow Travels, Jason is waiting for him. It's been almost three months since he broke up with Piper and just a few weeks since he's started feeling… _something_ towards Nico, but he can't get Nico out of his head.

So when he sees the familiar dark wash jeans and a T-shirt for some random band he's never heard of, he sucks up every ounce of confidence he has.

"Hey." It comes out kind of breathless-sounding, but Nico doesn't seem to notice.

"Hi."

"Um," Jason says. Deep breath. "I think – there's something you should—"

He'd rehearsed a whole speech in the mirror, but he can't remember any of it now. He was never this nervous around Piper.

"Uh, Jason?"

"Kiss me."

Nico just stares at him. "Um. What?"

Jason stutters something unintelligible. He cannot believe he just said that.

But Nico won't let it go. "Why the fuck would you say something like that?"

"Forget it," Jason says.

"Listen, I get that you're in college, and maybe still pissed about not being with Piper – or anyone – and that maybe you're drunk right now and want to experiment or whatever, but not with me, okay? I'm not going to kiss you just so you can chalk it off your bucket list. Just because—"

Jason grabs him by the shoulders, pushes him back against the wall, and kisses him.

It's rough, and masculine, and holy Hera it's hot.

Nico pulls back first. "What. Are. You. Doing."

Jason exhales. "Sorry. I just—"

Nico waits.

"I think I like you." The words tumble out in a rush and Nico just stands there, looking surprised.

"Um, what?"

"I think—"

"No, I heard you, I'm just trying to wrap my head around it."

"I'm sorry," Jason says. "I'll go. You can forget I said anything."

He turns to leave. Nico doesn't let him, catching his wrist.

And then Nico's lips crash against his own. Jason's hands end up in Nico's hair. Nico is doing something amazing with his mouth against Jason's jawline.

Jason's heart is beating so fast he is sure Nico can hear it.

They crash over the armrest of the couch. Nico ends up on top, and then his shirt is on the ground. Gods, he has nice abs.

What is weird for Jason isn't so much that he's making out with a boy as it is that he doesn't _feel_ weird about making out with a boy.

No, he feels pretty damn good about it.

It takes a little while to get used to the mechanics of it, since Nico is bigger than Piper and isn't as easy to shift around, but once he gets the hang of it, it's actually kind of nice not to have to bend down to kiss someone.

Then Nico is tugging at the edge of Jason's shirt and they have to break apart to get it over his head.

A few minutes later, Nico's hand reaches Jason's belt buckle.

Jason leans back, panting. "Wait."

"Sorry," Nico says. "We don't have to." But then he sees the look on Jason's face. "Unless you… _want to_?"

And then they end up in Jason's room, and Jason searches for the box of condoms Percy got him as a joke for Christmas (two months after Jason broke up with Piper), and then they're in Jason's bed.

Holy. Hades.

Nothing can feel better than this, except maybe waking up in the morning in Nico's arms.

He's going to have a hell of a time explaining this to everyone else.

_A/N: In addition to being my first attempt at m/m, this is also my first really non-canon romantic pairing. As in, I don't think this could ever happen in the books._

_In my headcanon, Nico is gay (I know it's never clarified in the book if he's gay/bi/queer/whatever) and Jason is open-minded. I don't know if I'd classify Jason as bisexual; I think of him more as someone who falls in love with a person, not a gender. Even though this fic isn't exactly canon, it _could_ be. _

_Although, to be fair, I do kind of like JasonxPiper better. I'm not really sure why. But I imagine that they would take a break during college instead of the whole long distance thing and that during that time Nico and Jason could have a random hookup like this. I felt like I kind of had to write this, though, because I wrote _**These Mortals Be** _a while ago and obviously _that's_ not how things play out. I don't know how I feel about this fic, but it was a fun opportunity to write a mostly-canon m/m. So much love to Rick Riordan for this plot choice, although hopefully Nico will get an actual love interest that loves him back in a future book. That'd be the best. He needs to smile more._

_Review?_


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